Monday, February 2, 2015

Iraq’s Diyala Province An Insurgent Stronghold

Diyala is a perfect example of on going conflict in Iraq. When
the insurgency regenerated itself in 2012, Diyala became one of its main bases.
That prompted the entry of Shiite militias to fight them. In 2014 during the
summer offensive the different factions joined together to seize control of the
northern and eastern sections of the province. Recently the Iraqi Security
Forces (ISF) and militias claimed that they had secured the entire province,
but that was more propaganda than fact. The insurgents are still strong in
rural sections and will continue to threaten not only Diyala, but neighboring
Salahaddin and Baghdad as well.

Insurgents rebuilt their networks in Diyala in 2012 in the
north around Qara Tapa and in the northeast by Sadiya, and used them to attack
into the center of the governorate in Muqtadiya and Baquba (Institute for the Study of War)

When the insurgents were rebuilding their networks Diyala
was one area they focused upon. They started by recruiting and re-establishing
themselves in places like the Hamrin region and Sadiya and Jalawla in the east,
which had never really been cleared of armed groups even during the height of
the U.S. presence. In 2012
the Islamic State began asserting itself by hitting places like Baquba and the
Diyala River Valley. In November 2013 it held a parade in Muqtadiya in the
center of the province. The next month it declared a wilayat or governorate in
Diyala. During those two months it also attacked an Emergency Police
headquarters in Baquba, and a military base in Muqtadiya. The province was also
used to move men and supplies into Salahaddin and Baghdad as well as hit
targets there too. Diyala was an ideal area for the militants to rebuild. Its
rural areas are noted for their heavy foliage, which offers perfect cover. The
Diyala River Valley also provides access throughout the length of the
governorate for the movement of men. These remain insurgent strongholds up to
the present day.

As the militants began picking up their activities there was
a response by Shiite armed groups. By the summer of 2013 there were the first
reports of new militia activity in Diyala. Just as IS was marching through the
streets of the province, the governor complained that militias were setting up
fake checkpoints and carrying out extra judicial killings. Likewise, in April
2014 the Mutahidun party of Speaker Osama Nujafi demanded that the security
forces do something about militia activity in the governorate. This was history
repeating itself. In 2005
when the Badr Brigade took over the Interior Ministry it began sending in
police commandos under its control into Diyala to carry out sectarian arrests,
kidnappings and killings. Like then, the militias were retaliating in response
to the insurgency. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also came to rely upon the
Shiite armed factions more and more starting in 2013, as he was unhappy with
the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) who proved incapable of containing the growing
violence throughout the country. Diyala was one of the first areas these
militias went outside of Baghdad.

IS also built up its bases in eastern Diyala’s Baladrooz (Institute for the Study of War)

2014 was when security started really deteriorating in the
province. At the start of the year there were complaints,
especially in rural areas that there were no security forces to be seen. This
was especially true as units were deployed from Diyala to Anbar where open
fighting had broken out in January. That month the Islamic State took the town
of Edheim in the northwestern section of the province, which had previously
been used by Al Qaeda in Iraq. It was also spreading from the Hamrin Mountains
and Diyala River Valley into Buhriz in the center, Bani Saad in the south, and
Baladrooz in the east. The ISF responded with the first sweep of the year in
the Hamrin area. In March, the insurgents picked up their attacks with a
sophisticated assault upon Qara Tapa in the north above Lake Hamrin. That began
with blowing up a bridge leading to the town to inhibit the security forces from
responding. A police station and four checkpoints were then attacked forcing
the ISF to withdraw. A neighboring town was then seized as well. It took six
hours of fighting to retake the area. The security forces responded with mass
arrests before withdrawing. The next month IS was still harassing Qara Tapa
with mortar fire leading to the governor to demand help from the central
government. At the end of the month the Islamists took over six voting
centers in the area during parliamentary elections. At the start of 2014
the Islamic State ramped up its operations in several provinces to let the
populace and authorities know that it was back. The dramatic attack upon Qara
Tapa and then harassing operations afterward were the hallmarks of this
campaign. The situation would only get worse when the summer started.

In June the insurgents made a major thrust in Diyala as part
of its summer offensive. The Islamic Stated formed alliances
with other armed factions such as the Naqshibandi, the Islamic Army, and the
Revolutionary Tribes to carry out joint operations against the government.
Attacks were focused upon Sadiya
in the northeast, Qara
Tapa in the north, Mansuriya
in the east, and Baquba
in the center. In the first two areas the ISF collapsed and abandoned their
positions. The peshmerga filled this vacuum, but not soon enough to stop a
tremendous loss of territory to the militants. 17 villages in Qara Tapa, 16 in
Sadiya, 15 in Edheim, 12 in Jalawla, and 7 in Mansuriya fell. Only the attempt
to take the provincial capital of Baquba was turned back. Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki responded by giving
Transportation Minister, Badr Organization head and Diyala native Hadi Ameri
control of security in the governorate. The ISF counter attacked at the end of
June re-taking Edheim
and Mansuriya. The events
in Diyala mimicked what happened in many other regions of northern Iraq in
June. The police and army simply gave up in many places giving the insurgents
free reign. If not for the intervention of the peshmerga and the rallying of
the ISF by the end of the month even more of the province would have fallen
into the hands of the militants.

In the following months the ISF and peshmerga would launch
operation after operation in Diyala, Many locations were cleared time and again
only to have pro-government forces return to them. A classic example was the
Hamrin Mountains cleared in July,
October,
and November.
The ISF and peshmerga simply did not have the forces to hold an area for long.
That meant after many security operations the insurgents would re-infiltrate
leading to renewed fighting.

The last big piece of territory IS took in Diyala was the
Sadiya-Jalawla area in August 2014 (New
York Times)

IS had one more big push in it during the summer when it
took the Sadiya-Jalawla area in the northeast. At the end of July,
the peshmerga said that it had cleared the area, but ended up withdrawing allowing the
IS to move
right back in. In August the insurgents launched concerted attacks and took
the area. It would take two months, but the peshmerga and militias finally
retook Jalawla and Sadiya, leading to a whole new round of disputes as the
Kurds claimed the region as part of the disputed territories, while the
militias demanded that they leave. That argument has not been resolved yet.

The success of the summer offensive covered up the deep
divisions and rivalries between the insurgents groups. The Islamic State like
its predecessor Al Qaeda in Iraq wanted to dominate all Sunni armed groups in
Iraq. In May it started
fighting the Naqshibandi and Ansar al-Sunna in the Hamrin area in an attempt to
undermine them with the hope that they could be taken over. Low level fighting
continued into June,
and by July, IS demanded that Ansar al-Islam
pledge allegiance to it, which it refused to do. By the end of August IS appeared to be
winning as several dozen Naqshibandi, Islamic Army and Mujahedeen Army members agreed
to join in the Jalawla area, while the Islamists continued to assassinate rival
leaders. A similar series of events played out across Iraq during the summer.
Many armed factions believed they were entering into an agreement amongst
equals to attack the government in June, but IS wanted to control them all.
Given its size, armaments, organization and ruthlessness it was eventually able
to incorporate many elements of these rivals groups into its own cadres.

Another conflict that emerged was a war over control of the
water system in the province. The Islamic State seized several dams and
irrigation systems in the center and northeastern half of Diyala and used them
to threaten the surrounding areas. In September
IS cut off water to Baladrooz, which prompted the ISF to try to retake the
area. That stalled
only after a few days. It then moved to the Sudour
Dam in Muqtadiya. IS was still in control of that facility at the start of October
and flooded two villages to block ISF operations in Sensl an IS base. In November
the security forces did take the Edheim dam in the north. Then in December
IS cut off the water to Baladrooz once again. This was another example of how
the militants had a strong presence in the rural areas of Diyala. They were
using them to attack the towns and cities of the province. This proved
especially difficult for the ISF and militias to counter as the continuous
security operations attested to.

Despite the constant back and forth the government declared
victory over the insurgency in January 2015. On January
23 a new operation started to clear Muqtadiya led by Hadi Ameri. In just a
few days, Ameri claimed
that the entire province was freed of militants. That was repeated by General
Abdul Amir al-Zaid who told the press that all cities, districts and
sub-districts in Diyala were secured.
Undermining his own statements, the general then said that a new operation was
going to be started in the Hamrin Mountains. Ameri and the general were
obviously getting ahead of themselves. While the militants in Muqtadiya were
scattered, they quickly regrouped in the Diyala
River Valley, Abu Saida and Mukhisa.
They still have a strong presence in the east as well meaning that there will
be continued sweeps to try to clear them out in 2015.

After the latest security operation IS has regrouped in Abu
Saida (BBC)

As insurgent violence increased in Diyala so did militia
retaliatory attacks. This recently hit the international papers when Shiite
groups allegedly killed 72 people in Barwana.
Any army officer told the New York Times that the militias were frustrated by
recent fighting in the area and carried out the murders in the town as revenge.
This was just the latest example of the simmering sectarian conflict in Diyala.
In March
2014, the town of Buhriz was temporarily taken over by IS. When SWAT and
militias retook it they burned three mosques and executed 23
young men. Asaib Ahl Al-Haq was believed
to be behind the incident. In June,
during the panic of the summer attacks an imam and two aides were picked up by
militiamen in Sadiya and later found dead in a morgue, 44 prisoners were
executed outside of Baquba, and at the end of the month 23 men were found
executed in Muqtadiya.
The security forces were sometimes complicit in these attacks as Reuters
quoted a police captain in Baquba who said that they shared information with
militias to carry out extrajudicial killings. In August,
after the town of Imam Weis was attacked by IS, 34
people were shot in retaliation inside a mosque. Finally, in December
men in uniforms kidnapped three councilmen from Bani Saad outside of Baghdad.
Two were Shiite and were released, while the third who was Sunni was found shot
in the head. The incident was blamed on militias who were attempting to
dominate the town’s government. The situation had gotten so bad that a
parliamentary committee was set
up to investigate the destruction of homes and mosques during security
operations in January 2015, and Prime Minister Haier Abad pledged
that militias would not be allowed to continue with these types of abuses. Again,
this was exactly what happened in Diyala from 2005-2008. Militias responded in
kind ot insurgent attacks by targeting civilians. Sometimes this was in retaliation
and other times it was more deliberate to try to force people out of regions to
deny the militants their support base. As fighting picked up in the province
these incidents only increased.

Diyala is not a main battlefront between government and
insurgent forces, but it has all the hallmarks of Iraq’s on going conflict. It
was one of the provinces where the insurgency rebuilt itself in 2012. Likewise
it was one of the earliest places militias began deploying outside of Baghdad
to fight them. Today, despite official claims otherwise eastern Diyala is still
a major insurgent base. In fact, the statements about the governorate being
cleared probably means that it will still not receive the forces necessary to
clear and hold any areas, and repeated security operations will continue there
for the foreseeable future. That will allow the insurgents to continue to use
its bases to attack central Diyala and more importantly neighboring Salahaddin
and Baghdad, which has been its major role in the last few years.

Iraq History Timeline

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com